When she was a teenager, Kathleen Bacon used to argue with her father, a venture capitalist with seven children, over whether women could have a career and a family and do both things well. “My father was adamant that you couldn’t,” she recalls. “You can be a mum and be a very good mum, or you can have a job and be very good at your job. But if you do both, you’re probably not going to be really good at one or the other.”